Wow, I really need to get better about working on these posts during the month or at the very least not trying to craft these posts last minute (like I’m attempting to right now).

Ahhh, this month was a whirlwind of stress and homework and I’m kinda anxious about the rest of semester, so I’m really looking forward to December 14th when my semester will over.

Same as the last 2 months have been, I’ll probably continue to be pretty spotty with my presence on my blog in November. Hoping I’ll be able to continue to get about 6 posts up per month, but we’ll see.

(wow, that was a rough intro, but I won’t dally any longer because I don’t think any more rambling from me will improve this.)

BOOKS I READ:

I read this whole book in one day! I read this book for my cultural heritage class on disability. Now, after looking up the author, I realize Haddon does not have autism like his protagonist, Christopher does, so it seems that the representation isn’t completely accurate, but from what I observed and read from other reviews, the rep still seems to be fairly decent.

Overall, this was a really interesting and fun read, but I wouldn’t call it incredible.

Another book I read in a day, lol, but this one was only 132 pages. This is a memoir written in vignettes about a magazine editor who suffered a stroke in 1995 which resulted in ‘locked-in syndrome’. After the stroke he was only able to slightly move his head and blink his left eye (which with a translator, is how he wrote this book). His writing is so amazing and beautiful and ahhhh I’m just in awe that his man composed this entire book in his head.

Could I really be expected to rate this otherwise? But guys, I finally hopped on this bandwagon! Omg, this book was so incredible and gripping! I loved all the characters, especially Starr and her family. From the situation to the fleshed-out characters, the realism in this book is astounding. Ahhh, I’m gonna stop this mini-review here because I don’t think I can write a coherent enough review to do this book justice.

An autobiography about a South African woman who essentially dedicated her life (seriously, I don’t think this woman ever slept) to helping others, especially those affected by the AIDS crisis. It was an interesting and relatively eye-opening read, it’s just that it seemed to fall short? I guess at only 125 pages, I wanted more?

A super amazing and incredible collection of short stories, I’m just annoyed that my professor made us spend forever reading this book and that she treated it like a flawless work (since no writer is perfect).
I do still plan to read more of Erdrich’s work in the future.

November TBR:

I technically started reading All the Light We Cannot See on Halloween, but I’m still counting it for this TBR.

I’m also (unrealistically) hoping that I’ll finally be able to finish reading Ruin and Rising and Rule, but we all know that’s not going to happen.

RANDOM LIFE UPDATES:

MY FRIEND KELSIE AND I WENT TO SARAH J. MAAS’S KINGDOM OF ASH EVENT IN CHICAGO!!!!!

Driving there and back took 6 hours but it was sooo worth it.

We also got there right before it started so we didn’t have a chance to do any of the extra activities beforehand but I honestly didn’t mind because there was wayyyy to many people crammed into that small area.

SJM is such an amazing person and author and I will be a loyal fan forever.

She brought out her baby and he was sooo cute!

My roommate, a couple of our housemates, and I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender!!!! We just started Book 2 the other day and I’m so psyched because I can’t wait for Toph to be introduced (my roommate has never seen the show before).

I saw the movie adaptation of The Hate U Give!

It was definitely different in that scenes & details were shifted in order to get rid of a couple subplots and make the story-line simpler. There were also some details about the ending that were changed that I LOVED. Perhaps even more than the book’s ending?!?! I haven’t decided yet. I also choked up at least 5 times during the movie.
So overall the movie was somewhat different, but a good different in my opinion. 🙂

I’M GOING TO NEW YORK CITY NEXT SEMESTER!

On Halloween, I found out that I got accepted into an off-campus study program in NYC!

Instead of taking classes I’ll have internships and be attending seminars and workshops. I’m super excited because I think I’m at the point where I need to be in a different learning environment and away from my college for a little bit.

How was your October? Did you do anything fun for Halloween? Did you gorge on candy like me?

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you guys are having a fun filled day with lots of candy and spooks! I know I sure plan to eat a lot of candy! 😋

Thank you so much to Hannah @ Books, Life, and Other Oddities for tagging me for this! She’s so funny and writes great posts so you guys should definitely check out her blog if you don’t already follow her!

ALSO I’m going to change this tag up a bit and try to include some book recommendations along with my answers to these questions. I actually made a post yesterday about my favorite paranormal series so you might see some repeats on here, whoops!

Thrillers or Supernatural(s)?

Supernatural books all the way! I’m totally with Hannah on this one in that I’m only here for the magic and fantasy in books! I do not need to be ‘thrilled’ or terrified or whatever it is that thrillers do.

Ghosts or Zombies?

Ghosts, for sure! Zombies are nasty looking whereas I like to believe that ghosts can’t physically hurt you. 😬

(Okay I haven’t read a lot of ghost stories, but these are the ones I remember reading. It’s been a long time since I read them though so I can’t remember how good they are.)

Vampires or Werewolves?

I’m gonna say vampires. The blood sucking aspect grosses me out, but I like their aesthetic a lot better than werewolves.

Witches or Monsters?

Can I say both, please? I refuse to choose between them; no one can stop me! They’re both so awesome!

Would you rather read a book with 13 chapters or a book with a black cat on the cover?

Black cat for sure! I love cats! I actually own a black cat! His name is Lucky. He was born on Friday the 13th. 😎

Would you rather read a spooky book in the dark with only a candle for light or by yourself in a locked brightly lit room?

Give me light PLEASE. I don’t like the dark. Also reading by candlelight would really hurt ones’ eyes and my eyes already suffer from staring at a screen too often.

Would you rather face your worst fears or be trapped in the mind of a killer?

Ermm, I’d rather not see people die, so I guess I’ll have to buckle up and face my fears.

Though it would take me a really long time because I am not dauntless and I have MANY fears. (Heights, spiders, blood, and the list goes on…)

Would you rather watch a scary movie or read a scary book?

A scary book? I’m a wimp when it comes to blood and guts and whatnot.

Here is a scary book I want to read! Though honestly the only reason I want to read it is because the protagonist’s name is ‘Carrie’ (tho spelled wrong, but that’s a minor detail). I do not care to see it’s movie adaptation though, because as I said I second ago: blood.

Would you rather read spooky books during the fall time or all year?

I rarely ever gravitate towards spooky books, so let’s limit it to the fall, shall we?

Would you rather read 10 spooky books in October or 10 spooky books all year?

Isn’t this really similar to the previous question? But all year, I guess? I don’t have the time to read 10 books in a month, let alone 10 spooky books. 😝

I TAG…

Anyone loves spooky things enough to do this tag after Halloween since I failed at blogging and didn’t see I had been tagged for this until yesterday. 🎃

(If you do choose to do the tag, make sure to pingback to this post so I can see your responses!)

What do you guys think of my choices? Would you choose differently? Have any good book recommendations based on my picks? I would love to read more books about monsters!

Are you doing anything fun for Halloween? Let me know down in the comments!

I don’t do scary, hence why this is a list of “Favorite Paranormal Reads” and not scary/horror books. This week’s TTT topic is a “Halloween/Creepy Freebie” and because I’ve been making too many TBR posts lately, I wanted to reflect on favorite books that I’d recommend! I haven’t done a TTT post since the first week of this month and I’m so excited to do one again!

My favorite vampire series is probably one that most people haven’t heard of. The Drake Chronicles follows the Drake family, a family of naturally-born vampires with one daughter and 6(?) older brothers. Generally, each book focuses on a sibling and their respective partner. It was probably cliche, and looking back, the guys were probably alpha males, but I remember fricking adoring this series! ❤

Okay, shhh, I haven’t actually finished this series yet, but I’m still including it because I’ve read the first book like 3 times now.
The series is about this girl who doesn’t know her own name, so she refers to herself as Mercy. For as long as she can remember, she finds herself randomly waking up in the bodies of other woman, each with their own set of problems that she must solve as she also tries to figure out her own identity.

Okay, looking back, these covers are kind of sketchy (and the titles, too, I know)…but I promise they’re really entertaining! Middle-school/high-school me loved these books! (is that a good thing? Sometimes I’m not so sure anymore, lol)
The series follow Gwen Frost, who is forced to attend Mythos Academy after the death of her mother. Gwen is a gypsy (I realize this is an offensive term now but this is how this 2011 book referred to her), meaning that when she touches objects, she can see strong emotions/memories associated with them. Mythos Academy trains all sorts of people, from the descendants of Amazons to Vikings and…I can’t remember the overarching plot, whoops. 😬

I love the concept behind this series, though I will admit that I found the 3rd book kind of long and unnecessarily stretched out. These books are well loved and I feel like I need to give them a reread someday.

Such an interesting take of Fairies! In the world of Wings, Pike portrays fairies as a type of plant, where they are distinguished by what season they bloom in. Laurel, the protagonist, thought her life was normal until she suddenly finds herself with a flower blooming out of her back…

Also apparently there’s a 5th book in this series? I didn’t know about this until I went to go get the pictures of the covers from Goodreads!

Honestly not sure I really remember what this series is about…a training school? forbidden romance? the chosen one trope?…but I remember really enjoying this series. They were really fun, fluffy paranormal reads and omg, these covers 😍

This series is essentially about a hidden community of dragon-like shapeshifters! Except one day, Jacinda disregards the rules and almost gets caught by hunters, forcing her mother to move her and her sister away from the community.

Omg, I love books about shapeshifters. I really need to find more…

What paranormal books/series do you love? Any recommendations? Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts?

If you participated in TTT this week, feel free to link up your posts in the comments below, I would love to read them!

Wow, hello my fellow readers! I feel like I haven’t been on here in awhile, even though I sort of have?? I don’t know, I’ll pop in for a few minutes here and there, but I haven’t had the proper time to dedicate to blogging in awhile and I miss that (and you guys)!

I won’t spend long on this introduction because writing intros are not my strong suit but also because I need to get back my staying on top of/getting ahead on my homework because ON THURSDAY I’M GOING TO SEE SARAH J. MAAS ON HER KINGDOM OF ASH TOUR!!(Not looking forward to all the driving my friend and I will have to do though). Lowkey, I keep kinda of forgetting this is coming up, and omg how has the book already come out? I so wish I could jump into the book when I get my copy on Thursday but there’s no way that I’ll have the proper time to dedicate to reading the book if I do, so I don’t think I’ll read it until December after this semester ends, ahhhhh.
(Was I coherent? I no longer know anymore)

For those of you who don’t know: WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words where you answer 3 ‘what’ questions about your reading.

What are you currently reading?
(a lot, lol)

El Deafo- Literally just started this book like 2 hours ago. It’s really cute so far and I can’t wait to see where it will go.

Love Medicine- Still reading this book for my fiction writing class. It’s really intriguing, but definitely an intense book.

Rule- Lol, still on this book. I started this book at the end of August and I’m still trying to get through it. It’s not that it’s bad necessary (tho it kinda is), it’s just a very low priority for me right now with the craziness of school.

What have you recently finished reading?

Pride and Prejudice- Read this for the 2nd time! Omg, the more my class continues to study Jane Austen this semester, the more I fall in love with her writing and the more I want to read of her work. ❤

The Hate U Give- I finally hopped on this bandwagon! Omg, this book was so incredible and gripping and ahhh, I don’t think I can state my feelings about the book/reaction well enough to do it justice.

Empty Hands- Read this book for my cultural heritage class on disability! It was super interesting and I’m completely in awe of all that this woman has done.

What do you think you’ll read next?

All the Light We Cannot See- Reading this for my book club in November! Our first meeting to discuss the first half is November 2nd, so I should really get started on this soon…

Station Eleven- The author is coming to visit my college campus in November and my creative writing class gets to have lunch with her, so I really should read her book beforehand!

What books are you currently reading? Any books you’re looking forward to reading? If you’re in school, are you hanging in there?

If you made a WWW Wednesday post this week, feel free to link it up in the comments below, I would love to read them!